if i can build a computer, i can make you love me
by pearlbutton328
Summary: Sam Puckett is a high school graduate stoner with no intentions of applying to college. Freddie Benson is a Computer Engineering Major with little hopes of having fun and finding love. This is an AU.


**So, my story's really very simple. I went to a party on the 2nd of April, got toasted, and came up with the idea for this small gem which I absolutely adore. And if you can't tell, I love enforcing sex scenes on my readers. Don't be afraid to tell me that I suck, though, haha.**

**- - - **

It's Freddie's third semester and he's stuck with a roommate that smokes pot. Weed, Buddha, Mary Jane, schwag, spliff; whatever he decides to call it, he smokes, and oftentimes, Freddie walks into a dorm smelling faintly of burnt sweet-smelling paper. He figures out within the first week that his roommate is as dumb as bricks and has a knack for destroying things, if the looks of his closet door and beat up hockey stick are anything to go by.

Freddie tries his best to avoid Griffin, but the stoner seemed to have taken a liking to Freddie and can be found hanging off Freddie's back whenever they're in the same room.

Like now, for instance.

It's one of the rare occasions where Griffin comes out of his room before sundown, and Freddie is trying to shake him off while perusing the selection of food on the lunch queue. His lips are moving, but nothing other than gibberish is coming out.

"It was, like, this big, man, I swear. So me and this chick, hot as sin girl named Becky, smoked the whole shit down. Orange haze, man. It was fucking piff."

Freddie feels a headache coming on. He's absolutely sure that it has less to do with loud noises, and more to do with the fact that he just really, really didn't like this guy. He glances down at his watch, thinks of grabbing a fruit and high-tailing it back to the library if only to get rid of Griffin, but is saved from his fate of being surrounded by books for hours on end when his cell phone vibrates, signaling a text.

He flips open the phone and sees the image of his floor's Resident Advisor blinking on the screen. He affords a smile before opening the text. He had once had a crush on Carly Shay, back when he met her in his first semester English Literature class, and he was stoked to find out that she had become the RA this year. She was a cool person, a great friend, but sometimes Freddie thinks that her lack of concern is a little unflattering. Take for instance the way she turns her cheek when it comes to Griffin doing drugs in the room.

He reads the text and groans. He had forgotten that he had volunteered to take part in Prospective Student Orientation week, and that they were going to be arriving in just one short hour. Suddenly, sticking around Griffin doesn't seem so bad.

::: ::: ::: :::

Freddie is absolutely delighted by the kid he gets to show around during Prospective Student Week. He's tall with sandy-blonde hair, his name is Shane, and he talks about systems architecture as if it's what he eats and breathes.

Freddie drools; he didn't think Christmas would come so early this year.

He shows Shane around the campus, explaining in full the history of every hall, every trophy case, every statue they pass, and then brings him his favorite feature: the hugest computer lab on campus that's equipped with enough gear that it manages to bring Freddie to his knees every time he steps foot in it. They get lost among all of the features and time flies by all too quickly.

Freddie had just bid Shane a goodnight and lied back on his bed when a knock sounded. He extricated himself from his blankets with a groan and opened the door.

Blue eyes traced him from head to foot before she said, "I came here for Griffin."

Freddie shook his head. "Griffin's not here."

"Oh. Well…" She looks past his shoulder into the room and then says, "I'll just wait here for him."

He is taken aback by the aggressiveness of this girl who shoves past him and into his room. His brows furrow as she studies both sides of the room, and goes toward the messier half.

"I'm assuming this is his bed?"

"You would assume correct." Freddie is still standing at the open door. "I don't think I've ever seen you around here before."

"That's because you haven't." She sighs and lies back on the bed, fingers a tattered poster hanging on the wall above the pillow. "I just came to check it out. Already figured that I don't want to come here; this place is a dud."

"This place happens to have some of the greatest courses offered to students."

The girl laughs, doesn't reply.

"So you're a prospective student? Hmm. I didn't know that Grif volunteered to show anyone around."

"He's not my tour guide. It's some lame valley girl—Wendy, or something." Freddie's eyes trace her as she gets up from the bed and moves across the room. Bad manners aside, he has to admit that she's kind of a catch, really good-looking. "Holy shit, that is a ton of electronics. What's your major?"

Freddie pulls his eyes away from her ass, answers, "Computer engineering."

She picks up one of his many cameras and turns it in her hand. "Where's the on button on this thing?"

Freddie, feeling uneasy, walks toward her with his arms outstretched. "Put it down."

She gives him an amused look. "Chill out, I'm not gonna _break_ it."

"I don't care, I still feel uncomfortable with you touching my stuff."

"Look, just trust me," she says and aims the camera on him, a small smile on her face.

"I don't even know you," he says, pissed, and grabs the camera out of her hands. Maybe a little too roughly, judging by the look on her face, but oh well. He's never felt comfortable with _anyone_ putting their hands on his electronics.

"I thought we were getting along fine."

"I don't know you," he repeats.

"The name is Sam." She rolls her eyes and turns away, spots the poster on his closet door. There is excitement in her voice when she asks, "You're a Metro Station fan?"

He shrugs and worries his lip. "A bit."

"Wow. What else are you into?"

"Um… Robots, science, black and white films…"

Sam looks at him in wonder, shaking her head. "Wow. For someone into Metro Station, you sure are kind of a huge dweeb."

He can't keep the insult from escaping his lips until it's too late. "And you're kind of a bitch."

She doesn't even blanch. "Whatever, _Fredward_. You're not as much fun as I thought you would be."

He eyes her warily as she saunters past him toward the door. "How do you know my name?"

A navy blue-painted fingernail taps one of the two signs taped to his door, the one with his full name on it. She looks at him from over her shoulder, quirks a brow. "Tell Griffin I came by." And then she's gone.

He closes the door and lets out heavy breath as he places the camera back on the cluttered

::: ::: ::: :::

Freddie packs his notebook and pencil into his bag and sighs. It had been a grueling class that seemed to have lasted the entire morning, but thankfully Shane managed to keep him awake.

As one of the tasks of a prospective student guide, Freddie had to bring Shane to his morning class. Shane had been excited, almost overly so in the way that he grabbed up Freddie's text and wrote down notes faster than what Freddie could keep up with. He hopes that Shane comes to this school; he knows that the new kid would make an awesome study partner.

Freddie leaves the classroom and comes across Carly in the hall. He's about to greet her when he notices that she's talking to Shane.

"Very well, actually," Shane answers to a question Freddie hadn't heard. "Freddie and I are getting along just great."

"That's cool." She tucks dark hair behind her ear. "So, what are you thinking of this school so far?"

"I mean, the classes are nice and small, and the people around here are nice. And pretty, too."

Freddie sees a light blush make its way across Carly's cheeks, and turns away. He's not sure how he should be feeling about someone flirting with her, but he doesn't want to think about it. It's not like it's his duty to protect her—she's a grown lady and has proven on many of occasions that she could protect herself.

His step falters when he looks up from his watch to see Sam a short ways down the hall. She's leaning against the wall, crumpling up a flyer that a passing girl had given her. Freddie thinks of turning around, kind of too embarrassed to face her after what he had said to her the night before, but only manages to take one step backwards before she spots him and calls his name.

He freezes with a smile on his face. "Hello, Sam."

"What's up, Fredward?" She lands a punch on his arm, and he hopes that his face doesn't show his discomfort. "Can you believe this flyer that girl passed to me? She wants me to try out for her triangle, triangle, funny looking 'e' sorority house. As if I couldn't look less like a vapid, cookie-baking pink."

Freddie looks her up and down, notices that she's right about not being fit to join a sorority house. She's wearing a tattered shirt with the messy scrawl of a name of the band on it in green ink, skinny jeans with maybe too much destruction, and black boots that comes up to her calf. He also had to wonder why the sorority sister in the pressed skirt and neat polo shirt had asked for _Sam_ to join, but he doesn't tell her that. Instead he says, "Sorry."

"For what?" She cards fingers through long, wavy blonde hair.

"For what I said last night, how I called you a… Well, you know."

She stares at him and then shakes her head. "Water under the bridge, Fredward."

Freddie shifts, somewhat relieved, and looks at the students milling in the hall, thankful for the long break in between classes.

"So, what are you up to right now?" She asks, bringing his attention back to her. Not that he minds or anything. "I'm bored."

"Oh, I was just heading off to the library, and then I have class after."

"No lunch?"

"Finding a topic to write my thesis on is more important than lunch right now."

"Nothing is more important than lunch," she retorts, following after him down the hall.

"Only according to you, then."

She laughs. "It doesn't look like you have much fun."

"Why do you think that?"

"Well, for one, every time I see you, you're holding a backpack that looks heavier than me."

"Don't you have an orientation you have to attend?" he asks. He's climbing the long flight of steps that leads up to the library, shifting the bag on his shoulder. There are a ton of students running up and down the stairs, and as he pushes past them, he feels her fingers latch on a belt loop on his jeans. He looks back at her. "Getting a little too personal, don't you think?"

"Nobody in this world is strangers to one another," she answers. "Loosen up, Fredward."

_In that case_, he thinks. "You can call me Freddie."

"Okay. I kind of like you, Freddie." She nods and takes a deep breath. "Yeah, I think it's my duty to make sure that you have some kind of fun in your life."

"If by fun, you mean flunking out of college…"

She laughs and pounds him on the arm. He winces. "I'm gonna start on you a little later. For now, there's a meatball sub that's better than sex calling my name. Maybe I'll drop by later with one for you."

"You can't, there's no food allowed in the library," he says, but turns around to see her long gone.

Later, after his evening class, he trudges into his dorm room to find Sam reclining on the bed next to Griffin, sharing a blunt. He makes an attempt to read the seventh chapter of his Theoretic of Computer Science text, but his eyes keep straying to her legs in the short, short shorts she's wearing and his mouth goes dry, but he blames that on the wisps of smoke clouding the room.

And maybe his pants feel tighter, but he blames that one on his faulty laundering skills.

::: ::: ::: :::

The next time he comes across her, she is involved in a shouting match with one of the residents. There is a tall girl with frizzy blonde hair across the hall from her, and Sam is just laughing and laughing and tossing back sarcastic retorts while the girl's face turns steadily pink. Freddie's a little amused at her attitude, but he soon grabs her by the wrist and drags her down the hall, pushing aside spectators on his way.

She looks at him with a smile on her face. "Oh, Freddie, I didn't see you all day. Where have you been?"

"Unless you know my class schedule, then you wouldn't have known where I was to see me at any time in the day."

There's still a sweet smile on her face, and Freddie crosses his arms, taps his foot. "What are you giving me that look for?"

"What look?"

"What did you do?"

"What makes you think I did anything? Anyway, that's a cute tie you have there."

"You're trying to avoid the question." His breathing skips a beat when she tugs on the tie around his neck, and he jerks it out of her grip and smoothes it down on his shirt, trying to give her his best stern look. "Just answer the question."

"What question?" She shrugs and walks ahead of him.

"You can't come into our school and start problems with the students, Sam. You'll be thrown out."

"Fine," she groans and stomps her foot petulantly and somewhere buried deep down inside, Freddie finds it kind of endearing. "I only just tried to steal her boyfriend from her."

For the first time in his life, Freddie chokes, stumbles on what to say. "What? Why?"

"For shits and giggles!" She tosses her head back, the ends of her hair waving just above the swell of her bottom, and laughs. When she calms down enough, wiping tears from her eyes, she catches the look on his face.

His stomach drops when a predatory smile blooms across her lips.

"Freddie, are you jealous?"

"No," he says quickly, and attempt to walk past her, but she grabs him by the arm. He is pinned against the wall, unable to move as she stands on her toes and puts her face near his.

She whispers, "Do you want to know how I did it? I seduced him. I waited for the girl to leave and walked up to him, sinking my teeth into my lip, and I gave him the most erotic look I could think of." She pulls away to demonstrate.

Freddie gulps. That, he thinks, is a rather good impression of a vixen.

Then she's leaning back into his space, breathing across his cheek. "I touched his neck and watched him watch me licking my lips, and I told him to meet me in the back of that workout room downstairs after midnight."

Freddie turns his face from her, ducks out of her grip. "And are you going to meet him?"

"Why? You don't want me to? Freddie?" She giggles. "Do you like me?"

He's getting nearer and nearer to his door, closer to getting away from this terror. She hops in front of him and places her palms on his chest.

"Whoa, there! I won't tell anyone."

"There's no one to tell. There is nothing you could tell, anyway, because the last thing you are is appealing to me."

She snorts. "You don't have to _lie_. We're grown-ups, right?"

He takes perverse pleasure in slamming the door on her face.

::: ::: ::: :::

She shows up at his dorm the next day with a tray of lasagna. Only because it's a Saturday and Freddie's one day off from studying does he let her in. They settle down on the floor in front of his roommate's old 24-inch television set and Sam takes a small baggie of what she calls "Purple Kush, The Good Shit" out of her pocket. She rolls in front of him, licks the paper closed with a copious amount of saliva.

Freddie makes a face when she raises the finished product towards him.

"Oh, come on. I'm giving you the fucking honor of having the first pull, take it and pass it." He cringes when she presses it roughly into his hand, but is soon too high enough to remember why he was hesitant to take it. Sam is plucking at his t-shirt, humming and aah'ing. "Why don't you ever wear this around school?"

Freddie looks down at himself in the red Johnny Quest shirt and snorts. "Yeah fucking right."

"No, I'm totally serious. How about you wear that tomorrow and I'll wear… hmm." She gets up from her spot on the floor with a big struggle and throws open his closet door. She pulls her own shirt over her head, exposing her back to Freddie, before tugging on one of his many button-up shirts. It fits loose on her, past the bottom of her shorts so that it looks like she has nothing on underneath, and Freddie's mouth goes dry. "You wear that and I'll wear this. Deal?"

"Hmm…" Freddie is tempted to make her change into a different shirt of his only to see her half naked again, but he pauses and sniffs the air around him. "What's that smell?"

"The lasagna!" She sounds delighted, but surprised, as if she forgot that she had brought it into his room.

They lean back against the side of his bed and turn their attention on the TV and Freddie pulls a face at the taste of the lasagna. "You know, this is kinda good, but it kinda tastes like shit."

Sam punches him on the arm. "Hey! I made that with love, you know. In Wendy's microwave."

"Yeah, well, it needs something." He reaches into an old Inside-Out Burger fast-food bag and takes out a few of the red and white salt packets. He sprinkles them on each forkful he heaves out of the pan, groans a little and finds out that he can't swallow fast enough to keep up with his bites.

"What is this ancient shit?" Sam asks a while later. She tosses her fork at the TV, but it stops way too short.

"It happens to be Herculoids," he answers. "And it's the… bomb."

Sam turns her head to him from where she's laying spread out on the floor, and smirks when he shovels down another mouthful. "You forgot the salt," she supplies helpfully.

"Oh yeah," he says around his the food on his tongue and rips open another packet before dumping it into his mouth. The tip of his tongue is too salty, but he manages to swallow it, and sighs as he leans against the bed. His side of the pan is demolished. "No way I ate more than you."

"Yes way!" She laughs and turns back to the TV where The Amazing Chan of the Chan Clan and Speed Buggy seem to run by in quick succession. His shirt is unbuttoned in four different places and Freddie can see the yellow fabric of her bra. He stares at the space where her belly button can be seen, traces the silhouette of her body underneath his shirt while dirty images come unbidden into his mind.

She's talking about Scooby Doo when he manages to pull himself away from his fantasies, how Scooby is her favorite and how Daphne is a whore, or something, and he soon goes back to thinking about licking the valley in between her breasts.

His mind feels slow, and her pink lips are moving too fast for him to keep up with and he decides to shut her up by leaning over and kissing her mouth closed.

::: ::: ::: :::

She goes back home the next morning, along with the rest of the kids who had come for orientation, with the promise that she'll be back. She kisses his lips numb and twists his nipples for her amusement so hard that he doubles over in pain, and steals a shirt out of his closet. He only finds out that it's missing hours later when he gets a picture message from her on his phone, showing her posing provocatively with nothing on but the button-up shirt.

He takes his cell phone into the printing room, makes a four by six copy of it, and tucks it into his bedside drawer, only allowing it out on his phone conversations with Sam that usually leaves him sweating and sticky and only recently satiated.

She shows up to his dorm two weeks later and leans into him hours later when he's leaving to go to class. Her eyes are narrowed in intense thought and she stares at his lips. "You know what? I'd really appreciate it if you started treating me like a sex object."

Before he can think of a reply, she's tugging on the lapels of his jacket, pulling him toward her and Freddie shows up at class ten minutes late a little hard and finds it difficult to banish the thoughts of what he would like to do with her.

::: ::: ::: :::

She's high. Freddie can see it in her heavy lids, in the way that she stumbles over her feet on her way to where he is. She has her hair pulled into a sloppy bun at the base of her neck, and when she sits next to him, Freddie can smell the weed. He doesn't even pretend to not notice.

She gives him a lazy smile, her tongue poking partly out of her mouth, and says, "You know what? I'm betting that sex with you will be no better than eating oatmeal."

"That's an unfair assumption, don't you think?"

"Hmm… no." She tugs the pen out of his hand and puts it between her teeth, takes a look around the library. "Do you sleep and eat in here or something?" She doesn't give him enough time to come up with an answer before saying, "I'm high as fuck right now."

The look he gives her is a dry one, or so he hopes. "I can see that."

"Are you mad? Did you want me to share?"

"No, I'm just busy." He really isn't. He's just been stuck on TV Tropes for the past half hour.

"Sharing is caring, Freddie," she says and pulls his laptop toward her. "Sharing is caring."

He doesn't particularly care for her unintentionally doing something to ruin his expensive laptop, so maybe he's not much of a sharing person. "Sam," he starts in warning, but decides at the last second to go a different route. "Where do you come from, anyway?"

"Outer Space."

"I know that," Freddie laughs. "But where do you live?"

"Um…" Her fingers are tapping across his keyboard and she's doing that smile thing again, where her tongue is lolling past her lips. "I live, like, an hour out. An hour away."

"Do you drive out here each time?"

"Uh, fuck no, I get rides. If I had a car, it would have been totaled twenty times, more than that. But my sister has two cars, one from when she got her license years ago and one from a guy she married, like, three months ago, and she's thinking of giving me one." Suddenly, Sam sits up straight in her chair and shoots Freddie an excited look.

"What?" he asks, immediately wary.

"You wanna see my kitty cat?"

"What?" he asks again, but this time with his jaw on the floor. "You want to… here?" He looks around the library as if to prove his point. There are three study groups happening at nearby tables, a few students walking amongst the shelves of books, and there are two guys sitting with their heads pressed together over a comic book. Call him crazy, but he doesn't think this is a good idea.

She laughs and pinches his arm. "I have a video of my new kitty on my SplashFace page, crazy. Wanna see?"

He nods, "Sure, yeah." He's feeling kind of dejected as he watches the small ball of black and white fur bounce around a carpeted floor, but then she whispers into his ear again that she's high and laughs, traces her lips down from his face to his chest to underneath the table, and the disappointed feeling fades quickly.

She sucks him like she's been starving to do so. She opens his pants and doesn't even give him enough time to complain that this is a _library_ before she's pulling him out. Freddie eyes the other occupants a little warily when she gives a few experimental tugs before biting down on his lip as she envelopes him in her warm, wet mouth.

Freddie leans his head against the table and moans into his hand as she licks him from the bottom to the top, stopping to dip her tongue in his slit before tracing it back down to his balls. Her fist is tight around him, slick from the combination of her saliva and fat drops of his precum oozing down his shaft, and she takes his balls into her mouth, one after the other, as she jerks him off.

There's a slow burn starting in the pit of his stomach, reaching out to his toes, and her bun spills loose under his fingers curling in her hair. He gropes her head and pushes up into her mouth, watching her watch him watch her lips go dark pink stretched around him, area around her mouth shining from his arousal. She breathes against him, takes in a deep breath through her nose, before smoothly inhaling him down her throat. He can feel the muscles of her throat flexing around him as she takes swallow after swallow and his eyes roll to the back of his head. He whispers her name, high and tight, before coming.

It's sloppy, the way he comes, the way it bursts out of him in thick gouts down her throat and paints her lips and chin with opalescent ribbons when she pulls away. She scoops it in her mouth with her tongue and moans, and if anything, that makes Freddie come harder.

He's feeling slightly faint by the time his dick stops convulsing and he lays his head in his arms and watches her straighten up. Her lids are still heavy and there's still a lazy smile on her face as she fixes her hair back into the sloppy bun.

"How was that for you?" she asks, watching his hands as he tucks himself back into his pants.

Freddie glances around the room and swallows hard, thankful that no one had their eyes on him. "Terrifying."

"If by terrifying, you mean fun…"

He looks at her for a long moment and shakes his head, laughing, and she places a hand on his shoulder as she stands up.

"Catch you later, Fred_dweeb_. I've got to go see a little birdie about some… stuff."

Before he goes to bed, as Freddie is in the shower soaping himself up, he can swear that he smells the scent of weed on his skin.

::: ::: ::: :::

It continues on like that for weeks, with her coming around at the most random times and pulling him away from his books—and there were those few times where he actually left the middle of his class for her—taking him to his room to perform sexual favors on him. He has a feeling that his grades are suffering, but he brushes that off because, really, what's the worst that could happen to him? Going down half of a grade letter?

She loves it, she tells him; loves having him pliant under her hands and mouth, having him gasp her name over and over and having to bite down on his hand just to try to make himself quieter. She also loves when he has control of her, she says one day when he has his fingers buried deep in her and he's licking that valley between her breasts he can't stop thinking about.

But, for all the great sex, he can't help but notice that something is missing. Something like an actual relationship. He brings that up to her one day and she tells him, "Why complicate something that's just so fucking perfect?"

Freddie scoffs. "I don't know what you think about me, but I think you're an interesting person and… and that it'd be a great idea to get to know you, you know, somewhere where it's not a school hall o—or a bed."

"Freddie… You're so weird," she whispers, complete with hand gestures.

"How so?"

Sam shifts in the bed, raises on her elbows and gives him a look. "I thought guys liked this. You know, no strings attached, sex whenever, a hot chick who doesn't complain. You… You follow some different type of formula."

And Freddie tries not to sound jealous, but he thinks he fails. "How many guys like this with you?"

She twists her lips to the side. "You might as well say what you really think."

"Fine—how many guys are you sleeping around with, like this?"

"So… I'm some kind of slut to you?"

"I didn't say that."

She just stares at him for a moment longer before rising off the bed.

"I didn't," he defends himself, sitting up and allowing the sheets to pool in his lap. He keeps his eyes trained on her as she gathers her clothes together. "I mean, unless you feel some sort of guilt about quite possibly owning that title…"

"Freddie…" She pauses in pulling on her jeans. "I am my own person with my own priorities. And besides, I've got no obligation to you."

Freddie's heart rate speeds up, and before he knows it, he's standing naked in front of the door. "Don't leave just yet. I, um… I wanted to ask you something."

Sam eyes his limp manhood and snorts out a laugh. He blushes and grabs the shirt out of her hands, covers himself. She pulls herself together after a minute or two. "Okay, what do you want to ask?"

"Come to a concert with me."

"What?"

"No, I'm serious." He steps closer to her, and his heart rate goes up another notch. "Uh, there's this venue—a park-- across town where some band called Bat for Lashes is supposed to be playing. I could get us tickets."

She rolls her eyes. "Sure, Freddie, I'd love to awkwardly sway with you at an outdoor concert."

"Great," he says, and can't keep the smile from coming on his face. "It's this Saturday."

"Um, did you notice that was sarcasm?"

"I don't care. You know you really want to go." He steps even closer to her, feels confident in the way that she looks down at his chest and how it takes her a while to get back to his face. "I mean, excessive noise… Fresh air… Sweaty bodies. It sounds just like your type of party."

She smiles, puts her fingers on his chest to nudge him aside. "Yeah, yeah, you know me too well. Now wipe that smirk off your face."

"Or what?" he challenges, feeling a bit playful.

"Or…" She stands on her toes and places a kiss on his lips and he thinks, yes, that is a good way to get rid of a smirk. However, before he can return her kiss, he's shoved, hard, past the door he didn't know she had opened and into the hall. "Hey, look, everyone! It's the lame computer major!" She yells quickly before slamming the door shut.

When she comes out of his room a minute later, she has her shirt on and is smirking at the embarrassed flush on his bare body. As he passes her, he thinks he lets out a little growl, but she only grins wider, laughing above the din of the spectators. "Later, Freddie," she says, and he is able to hear her chuckling to herself all the way down the hall.

::: ::: ::: :::

He meets up with her at their designated spot two blocks away from the park and Sam makes him stop in a candy shop to buy her a malt shake before they make their way toward the venue. On the way there, Freddie can spot quite a few people from his college, as well as other college-aged kids who have some parts of their faces painted green. Sam jeers a crowd of them as they walk by, shouts, "Let's go Vikings!"

Freddie gives her a startled look. "You know our mascot?"

She shrugs, gives him a look that says, _What do you expect?_ "I've been here more often than I went to classes in high school. The fact that I know your mascot by its first and last name, and the t-shirt it wears, is totally justifiable."

"Alright, I'll give you that."

Sam points out a crowd of six college-aged kids wearing the colors blue and gold that pass them, asks him, "Why aren't _you_ wearing your school colors?"

"Why does it matter?"

"It matters because it's showing your school spirit!"

Freddie chuckles dryly and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "I'd probably show more school spirit if this college wasn't my third choice."

She looks up from her shake and gives him the most surprised look he's ever seen. "I thought you loved your school! Like, so much you wanna fuck it!"

Freddie pulls a face. "I do not want to _fuck_ my _school_, Sam. And I do like it, a lot. It has a great computer engineering program—"

"Blah, blah, you and your lame major," she interrupts and smiles innocently when he scowls at her.

"Yeah, well, it's the only thing about this school I can stand. That, and its five ridiculously huge libraries."

She peers at him through eyes squinted from the harsh rays of the sun. "What was your first choice?"

He snorts. "You kidding me? Stanford."

"Poor Freddie," she teases. "You should have known not to aim that high."

"Just because you have low expectations for everything…"

"I do not!" She smiles at him, flashes dimples, and his stomach does a weird flop.

"Well, I'm glad I came here, anyway, because if I had gone to Stanford, I wouldn't have met you."

She attempts to wrinkle her nose in disgust, but turns away laughing instead. "Yes, you would have," she mumbles around her straw. They walk the rest of the way in silence, and by the time they reach the park, Sam has handed him her malt, complaining that the chocolate sauce tasted weird, and Freddie is just finishing it off for her.

The concert is just as Freddie had expected. The people are rowdy, there are more speakers than necessary, and the lead singer is screaming tunes into the microphone instead of singing like a proper lyricist. Freddie feels a headache coming on half an hour in when Sam passes him a blunt.

"First hit?" She raises a brow and passes him a lighter.

The high hits him too quickly, slams into him so hard that after having only two hits from the joint, he can see his eyes tinged red in the reflection on Sam's aviators. He feels slow and groggy, but he's almost too afraid to sit down because he thinks that he won't get back up again, and so, taking Sam's hand in his, he instead walks around the park.

A lot of the concert flies by him as they stumble upon small groups of people and hold small conversations. Freddie feels so happy and free with Sam by his side that he can't find it in him to wipe the grin that's straining his cheeks off of his face.

Their fingers tangle after a while and when Freddie looks into her pretty face, his stomach lurches. With a start, he comes back to reality. His head is clearing and the music is steadily increasing in volume. "Oh, no," he says, stopping so suddenly that their hands tug as Sam continues to walk. "Oh, no. Oh, fuck, I'm not high anymore."

Sam raises a quizzical brow.

"Sam! Sam, it's going away. I'm not high anymore!"

She chuckles a bit, pushes her face into his chest before stepping back. "Relax, Freddie. This shit right here lasts for hours."

"Oh," Freddie says, and she's right. He can hear the music getting dimmer, his blood slowing down again, and his grin reappears before Sam begins dragging him off. He stops short when he comes across Carly.

"Hey, Freddie!" She exclaims, lazily throwing her arms around his neck.

"Hey!" He returns her hug, giving Sam a guilty look over Carly's shoulder. "Spreading the love."

She steps back from him, brushing dark hair out of her face. "I didn't know you were going to be here! We could have come together."

"I already came with sort of a… girlfriend." He knows his mind isn't playing tricks on him when he sees the way that Sam's eyes brighten up for a second. "Sorry."

"That's okay, that's totally cool!" Carly spins toward Sam and raises a finger. "Hey, I know you. You were that, um, that… that…"

"Orientation student," she supplies.

"Yeah, that one. I missed you," Carly says shortly before leaning against Sam's side, hugging her loosely.

Sam pats her arm, an amused look on her face. "Yeah, I missed you, too."

"Yeah? Okay!" Carly pulls back and grins at the both of them. "Anyway, it's so great to see you guys here, but, I, um, I have to run off because my mouth feels so cottony and I think I need something to drink."

"I saw bottles of water to the left of the stage," Sam says, pointing the way. When Carly stumbles far enough away, Sam turns a look on Freddie. "Who was she?"

"A girl I used to like."

"Oh. Would you like to… run off with her?"

Freddie laughs, tugs on Sam's wrist until she's enveloped in his arms and mumbles against her lips, "I want to run off with you."

"Then let's go!" Sam yells before taking off, and Freddie trips up a bit as he runs after her.

They wind up ducking behind a Porta-Potty. Freddie has his jeans pooled around his ankles and he's gripping Sam's dress high up on her hips as he thrusts into her. She's screaming his name just below the screaming of the concert goers and her hands on the wall gives her leverage to push back. His eyes stray from the messy ball of blonde hair on her head to the blue walls with messy scrawls on it, decorated with things like, 'Krissy wuz here' and 'Follow the fucking Bunny'.

He spots equally messy scrawls on her back, just above her hip, and asks, "What do these tattoos say?"

"I don't know," she moans through gritted teeth. "Just a bunch of shit."

"Oh." He fucks her until his legs feel like jelly and they're both sweating and Freddie turns her around and spreads one of her legs high up on his arms, burying himself deep inside her.

"Fuck, Freddie," she moans and gasps. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Freddie delivers just that, and then some. He bites into the skin of her neck as he thrusts into her so hard that the portable bathroom quakes. He kisses her deep and nasty, tugging her lips open with his teeth and slipping his tongue along every crevice in her mouth, sucks her tongue until she's scratching at his back through his sweat-soaked tee. The noises she makes are unreal to him, hitching little breaths almost like sobs in his ear as she claws at the hair at the base of his neck.

He loses count of how many times he makes her come, clenching tightly and squirting around his dick, dripping down to his balls. He just knows that by the time he's finished, she is a wreck on the ground. She's doubled over her knees, her legs crossed, and tremors run repeatedly down her back. Freddie kneels next to her and kisses that spot behind her ear until she's calmed down enough to speak. She makes him carry her on his back to the middle of the crowd, and they jump and shout and dance around all night until Freddie finds that he can hardly stand up anymore.

They hitch a cab back to the college with a fellow student, splits the fare, and when Freddie sneaks her into his room, they barely reach the pillows on his bed before they're knocked out.

They don't wake up until late in the afternoon the next day, and Sam borrows his toothbrush and steals another one of his shirts before leaving.

::: ::: ::: :::

Freddie tugs on the hem of his shirt as he steps off the bus. He's a few towns over from his college, having decided to pay Sam a surprise visit the weekend following the concert. As he passes a shop adorned with plants on his way over to her street, an idea overtakes him.

He's smiling his brightest when the door opens. Sam is standing across the threshold and the first thing Freddie notices is that her hair is really straight, stopping to just below her elbow. The next thing he notices is that she's wearing a pleated skirt with a ruffled blouse tucked inside, and on her feet are quaint heels.

The look is very different, very odd, but Freddie keeps his smile pasted on, anyway.

"Sam, hey!" He greets and stretches one arm out, but she backs away a step.

She shoots him an apologetic look before turning away into the house, calling out, "Sam! There's a guy at the door for you! And he's kinda cute…"

Freddie, thoroughly confused, steps inside of the house, shouting, "Wait!" But then Sam—a different Sam, the Sam he remembers—comes bounding down the steps with a wide grin on her face.

She looks as flustered as he feels.

"Freddie, what…" She runs a hand through her hair. "What are you doing here?"

"I…" Freddie stops, shakes his head. "You're a _twin_? How come I didn't know this?"

"Because all the guys I know are perverts, and the first thing they talk about when they find out I have a twin is threesomes. Gross, right?"

Freddie would have to disagree with her. Two of Sam could be better than one.

"Anyway, that's not the point. What are you—why are you here?"

The corners of his lips tilt into a smile. "To get my shirts back from you. Why do you think I'm here?" He produces the bouquet of flowers he had hidden behind his back and Sam's eyes go wide when she sees them.

She licks her lips, smiles timidly. "You are the sweetest guy in my life right now, do you know that?"

"Yeah? Do you get a toothache from just being around me?" He flirts, but she just laughs before grabbing his wrist and leading him upstairs. They go into a room that has posters all over the wall and dark bed sheets and clothes tossed all over it as if it were hit by a hurricane, and when Freddie turns back to her, he notices a flush on her cheeks.

"I don't ever bring anyone up to my room."

"It's okay," he says, plucks a bra off the bed that's piled high with an unnecessary amount of pillows before taking a seat. "I mean, it's messy, but it's completely you."

Her flush gets darker. "That's not what I'm embarrassed about." And then she goes to her bureau and picks up a pile of bright pink magazines, fans them out for Freddie to see. "Don't ever let anyone know that I read Cosmo Girl."

And Freddie laughs, and Sam follows suit, and they don't stop until there's a knock on Sam's open door. Freddie smiles at her twin as she steps inside with a tray of glasses. "I got us some juice, if you guys are thirsty."

Sam pulls a face. "She's just nosy."

"Am not!" Her twin makes a face back at her, and Freddie chuckles before raising a finger.

"I'm kind of thirsty."

Her heels clack delicately on the hardwood floor as she walks toward Freddie and passes him a glass, a polite smile on her face. His fingers brush over hers as he accepts the juice.

"I'm Melanie."

"Freddie," he returns. He raises his brow at the both of them as he takes a sip of the refreshing drink. "So, who's older?"

"I am," Melanie says. "By about two minutes."

"Yeah, she's a total cradle-robber," Sam says, leafing through a magazine as she takes a seat next to Freddie. "So watch out."

"I am _not_ the cradle-robber. Jack is."

"Oh yeah," Sam laughs, rolls her eyes until it lands on Freddie. "Jack, her husband."

"Wow." Freddie looks Melanie up and down, pauses on the cute dimples in her cheeks, so identical to the ones Sam rarely shows. "Already married at such a young age?"

"It's not so young if you consider the ages of woman who wed their husbands in the eighteen hundreds and back."

"Ladies and Gentleman," Sam exclaims, "Melanie, The Old Fashioned."

Freddie laughs with the two girls and settles in for the conversation they keep up all afternoon.

Later, when the sun's long gone from the horizon, Freddie's lips are numb from the long, vigorous kiss Sam gives to him on her front porch. They pull away from each other and Sam pants into his collarbone for a while before saying, "It's almost ten. Shouldn't you be getting home, Cinderella?"

"Aren't I the Prince Charming?"

"Not in my storybook, you're not."

Freddie laughs, squeezes her ass in his palms and nudges her lips back on his. He's loathing to let her go. "Can't I just stay?"

"So my parents can have a fucking fit in the morning? I don't think so."

"About that—when _am_ I gonna meet your parents?"

Sam shakes her head and pushes him down one step, but there is a smile playing across her lips, so Freddie doesn't think he's in trouble. "Goodnight, Fredward. I'll call you."

"I'll call _you_," Freddie says, retreating.

"No, I'll call _you_," Sam laughs.

"No, _I'll_ call _you_. See? It's too late, I'm already calling." He pulls his phone out of his pocket and is too busy dialing her number that he doesn't notice the boulder at the edge of the sidewalk. He falls, sprawled onto his back, and he hears Sam let out a rowdy laugh as she answers her phone. He brings the phone to his ear.

"Goodnight, dweeb," she breathes into his ear before flipping her phone shut, retreating into her house and shutting the door.

::: ::: ::: :::

Freddie feels like he's soaring in the clouds. His grades are excellent, his love life is going the way he wanted it to go, and to top it all off, his roommate managed to pick up his side of the room and spray some Febreze. He doesn't think that his life could get any better right now.

His mind immediately strays to Sam when he leaves his morning class, and he thinks about the day he showed up to her house and all the days in between, the countless perfect dates over coffee and sandwiches, and the countless perfect nights spent with her in between his sheets. He's thinking of calling her to ask her to come out for coffee as soon as he puts his bag down in the dorm.

He's just opened the door to his room when he sees a delightfully familiar face smiling at him. He smiles back at her, begins to give her a greeting, but he pauses when he looks behind her only to see Griffin pulling a shirt over his head, a goofy smile fixed on his face. Griffin is wearing not much else.

Freddie's face, and something in his chest, falls, and he backs away from the doorway.

Sam is still smiling, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Hey, Freddie. I've been looking all over for you."

His nostrils flare. He can feel something red and angry, something like betrayal, sizzling in his stomach. "No you weren't."

"What?" She laughs, looking completely innocent. "Yes, I was."

"Do you mind telling me—" He stops himself, takes a deep breath to lower his voice. "Do you mind telling me what you were doing in there with Griffin?"

A confused look comes over her face as she looks back into the room. Then she's pulling the door shut, saying, "Whoa, I think you have the wrong idea."

"Do I, Sam?" He takes a step toward her. "What is Griffin to you?"

"He's my cousin's best friend."

"I'm not asking how you know him. I'm asking what he is to you."

"He's, like, the friend of a cousin," she replies sarcastically, laughing. "And we're so totally fucking."

"You know, Sam, if you would have told me you were a whore off the bat, then I would have been saved from wasting so much of my energy on you."

At that, she goes livid. "Whoa, what the fuck are you talking about, Freddie?"

"I'm talking about you in the room with Griffin while he's half-assed naked—"

"I think you need to fucking calm yourself down," she shouts back at him, pointing an angry finger in his face.

He bats her hand away and snarls, "You disgust me."

She clenches her teeth together and blinks a few times before fleeing down the hall. He follows after her, blood burning in his veins. "Go away, Freddie," she tosses over her shoulder.

"For what?" he shouts, doesn't pay attention to the baffled students that look his way. "You can so easily give any other guy who chases you the time of day, but you can't give it to me? Huh? Where's the fairness in that, _Sam Puckett_?"

"That's right, I do!" She stops to yell in his face. "And you are being such a bigoted dick!"

"Yeah, well, this bigoted dick is what you've been riding the past couple of months."

Sam pauses, takes in a deep breath and lets it out before turning away. "Oh, I feel like such an idiot."

"I would, too, if I were caught cheating," Freddie says as he follows her outside.

"Oh, no," Sam groans. "I'm such a fool."

He moves to stand in front of her, grabbing her wrist to make her stop walking. "Why are you saying this?"

"Why? _Why_, Freddie? It's this, what we have going on." She gestures between them with her free hand. "It's… I just feel like the biggest idiot on the planet." Her chest is heaving and her face has crumpled, and Freddie feels a pang of guilt where his heart should be. "What did you want, Freddie?" She continues. "Did you want for me to be here to blow you every day? Do you want me to give you head before riding you like a cowboy? Is that what you want?"

"No, Sam," he breathes.

"Did you want to just have an illicit affair? For me to be your whore? Because that's just not fair!" She tugs her wrist out of his grip and swipes at her eyes before turning away from him, walking in a different direction.

"No, Sam. It's more than sex."

"It's _never_ more than sex."

"It may not have been with… With the other guys you were with, but it's more than that to me. Sam, I loved you." He spins her around by her shoulders, peers into her tear-stained face.

"Freddie," her breath hitches, and she shakes her head. More tears drop. "I can't. I can't."

And then she's gone from underneath his hands, her hair whipping in the breeze as she walks away from him, and Freddie stands in the same spot for a while, unable to breathe.

::: ::: ::: :::

Freddie thinks about how he can go from being so high in life to sinking so low.

He's stopped speaking to his roommate—not that he was doing much of it before—he's stopped offering answers in his classes, and he not gone anywhere other than his room and the library for what feels like forever. There's an ache deep in his heart and he tries to remain optimistic that it'll go away, but weeks pass and the feeling is still there, as strong as ever.

He just wants her back.

The words become a blur under his gaze, jumbled up and dancing around the page, and his sight only clears when he sees a small drop land on the page.

And then she slides into the seat across from him.

He sniffs, takes a deep breath. "Sam?"

She smiles politely and shakes her head. "Guess again."

"Oh," Freddie says and swipes a hand across his mouth before sitting up straighter.

"I took your schedule out of Sam's drawer, and that's how I knew you were here."

"That's… remarkable."

She stretches an arm across the table, holds his hand under hers. "The sarcasm doesn't work when you look like a kicked, starving puppy."

He looks at the ring shining on her finger, and his eyesight clouds up again. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to check up on you." She pulls her hand away and sits back in her chair. "Sam is doing really badly, but she's trying not to let it show."

"I'm sorry," he says, swallowing a sob. "I'm so sorry for putting her through this."

Melanie shakes her head, her high ponytail bobbing against her shoulder blades. "You both put each other through this."

"But it's my fault. I caught her in the room with Griffin and I just blew up. I could have just let it pass, but I have too much pride…" He stops to sniffle. "I'm so stupid."

"You are if you think that she did anything with Griffin."

"But—"

"Freddie, I don't know how to tell you this, but… You're such a fool! Why would you think that she would cheat on you, and with _Grif_ of all people?"

"I don't know," he shrugs. "Why would she cheat on me with _anyone_?"

"She wouldn't," Melanie says sternly, forcefully. "How long have you guys been seeing each other?"

He flips a page in his text, doesn't look up at her. He doesn't know how much longer he can stand looking at her face without making a fool of himself. "I don't know. A little over half a year, I guess."

She doesn't respond for a long time. Freddie has a thought that she had slinked off when her voice startles him. "This can be fixed."

He feels nauseous, nervous and anxious, and he says, "She may hate my guts."

"She may hate your guts," Melanie repeats. "For now. But I know my sister, and I know that she misses youjust as much as you miss her."

Freddie shakes his head. "I've been trying to get over her."

"And how were you doing that?"

"I don't know, I just… Got rid of all the sheets she slept in, I stuffed all my superhero t-shirts into a box in the back of my closet. I even stopped drinking coffee."

Melanie lets out a small giggle. "Sam has been trying to erase you from her memories as well."

A grin spreads across his face and Freddie has to ask. "How?"

"She's doing this complete personality change thingie where she's trying to be more like me. It's a bit eerie. But it's better than the alternative, what I thought it would be. I thought she'd have dyed her hair black by now and listened to Evanescence twenty-four seven."

Freddie finds his stomach hurting from all the laughing he'd doing while Melanie goes on and on about her assumptions. He's getting looks from the other occupants of the library, but he just brushes them off, for the first time in a long time feeling something akin to _joy_.

Melanie brushes her skirt down when she's done, and stands up and the smile that she gives Freddie is bright and full of hope. "You're a good guy, Freddie. Now, please, do good by my sister."

::: ::: ::: :::

Freddie follows the instructions Melanie gives him over the phone and finds his way to the center of the forest near to where she lives, to the watering hole. He looks around at the trees and the wildlife, breathes deep, and thinks, _No wonder this is her favorite place to go_. There are thin shafts of sunlight slicing through the branches of the trees looming above and the stream runs serenely, calming in a way as deer that stand sparse along the bank drinks their fill.

Freddie spots her a little ways down, bending over ankle deep in the water, and his heart thumps wildly in his chest. He tries to swallow down his anxiousness as he makes his way toward her, but it proves to be a hard task, and when she suddenly turns around, a curious look on her face, he jumps out of his skin.

"You," she says, so low that he can barely hear her over the sound of the stream.

His arms are hanging by his side and his shoulders are slumped and he is breathing hard, as if he ran a marathon. "I'm so sorry," is all he says, staring into her blue eyes.

She clanks two small opalescent rocks in her hands, looks away from him. "I don't know what you're expecting me to say."

"Sam, you don't have to say a thing." He takes a cautious step toward her, and her eyes are full of pain she looks at him.

"Actually, I have to. What makes you think that you can come to _my_ place and expect me to fall back into your arms? You're lucky that I don't just… hit you in the head with these rocks."

"Don't," he hedges a smile. "I'm already an idiot."

"Melanie told me that she spoke to you the other day."

He nods.

"And that's the only reason why you're here, isn't it?"

"It's the only way I could find you."

Sam snorts. "Yeah, Melanie thinks she has all the answers just because she's married. Little does she know that she has it so easy." She shakes her head, sighs. "You've got anger issues, you know that?"

"I was just being a jealous asshole. It's hard hearing the girl I love with all my heart telling me she's fucking someone else."

She cuts him a dirty look.

"I know, now, it was a joke," he says hastily. He breathes heavily and looks down. "I'm sorry, Sam, but it hurts being without you and I just want you to take me back. And I promise I won't… I promise I won't hurt you anymore."

"You know what I should say, right?"

He swallows, hard. "I'm hopeful that you won't."

The rocks make a small splash as they're tossed back into the stream, and Sam trudges away in the water, wading in a little past her knees. Freddie can see her thinking, gives her time. She dips her fingers in the water one by one, splashes it up, and when Freddie spots her barely noticeable shivering, he walks into the water. It soaks his sneakers and jeans, but he doesn't care, just makes his way over to where Sam is and wraps his arms around her from behind.

"You know, long distance relationships don't work out."

Freddie feels something bubbling up in his chest. He thinks it's happiness.

He lets loose a sob, smiles. "I'll sneak you into my room every day."

She shakes her head and furrows her brows. "That won't work, either. I'll need to eat and pee…"

"So I'll give you a bucket and feed you enough food to make you fat."

She laughs, and Freddie has to bite down on his lip to keep from sobbing again. "Why would you want for me to be fat?"

"So that you won't be able to fit through the door, thereby making it impossible for you to ever leave me." His heart thumps a staccato beat against his ribcage when Sam turns in his arms, looking up at him with warm, accepting eyes. "I'm sorry," he starts again, but she scrunches up her face and shakes her head, silencing him.

"Water under the bridge, Freddie. But you have to promise me something."

"Anything," he says, and then sees the look come over her face and backtracks. "Okay, not anything, but most things. We'll see what you ask for."

She laughs. "You're not to call me a whore ever, ever again in your life."

He swallows. "Deal, you didn't even have to ask."

"Nor a bitch—with the exception being if we were in bed—and you absolutely must carry me on your back whenever I ask you to."

"Hey!"

She places a wet finger against his lips and gives him a stern look. "Whenever I ask you to, _Fredward_."

He huffs, smirks against her finger. "And what do I get from you for a lifetime of my services?"

"Hmm… I promise not to laugh anymore at your ridiculous major."

He laughs and wraps her up tighter in his arms. "It never was ridiculous."

"Um, you're going to be building computers the rest of your life," she says incredulously, pinching his arm for added exaggeration.

"And you're gonna love me while I build these computers the rest of my life."

She struggles against a smile and he decides to show her mercy by stealing her lips in a kiss. They stand there, in that small stream for a while, until Freddie's hair has gotten soaked by Sam's fingers and the toes in his sneakers have gone numb, but Freddie doesn't pay his mild discomfort any mind. Instead, he presses his face into her neck and breathes her deeply.

- - -


End file.
